Slipknot’s Corey Taylor: How Concerts Will Return

It's a tough time to be a touring band, but Slipknot's Corey Taylor recently spoke with Rock Feed about his thoughts on the return of concerts after the coronavirus pandemic and gave some insight on how certain possibilities might play out for his group.

Early in the discussion, Taylor did address the elephant in the room, stating, "No matter what, we are going to finish the tour cycle. We are just trying to make the best of the situation." Slipknot have been one of the top touring acts going over the course of their We Are Not Your Kind album cycle and had major plans for 2020, including several installments of their Knotfest concert event brand. At present, the band, like many others, continues to monitor the situation. You can stay up to date with their touring plans here.

When asked about the return of concerts, Taylor stated (as transcribed by Metal Injection), "It all depends on how we open this back up. You almost have to attribute it to the way casinos are opened [in Las Vegas], with a soft opening. They basically do an opening before the grand opening and people wander through and it's not packed, it's not huge. It's just seeing what people are going to be into and seeing if they are into what's being provided."

He continued, "That's basically what they're going to do with this industry. There's going to be a soft opening. There are going to be handful of acts. They are going to be the litmus test to see what the world is ready for. It will probably be in smaller venues. Because people will be fucking scared, man. Or, maybe outdoor venues, where people don't feel like they're confined. They don't feel like they're too stuck together. There's going to be a sense of paranoia for a while, even after there is a medicine developed, or a vaccine."

Taylor says he feels that it's going to take some time for concerts to come back at full capacity, adding, "There will be some acts that have to fall on the sword. If we do it right, and build that enthusiasm, probably within a year, maybe a year and a half, we'll see the same enthusiasm for live shows that we did before. Because, I think that once people realize everything is going to be okay, people are going to realize that they take for granted that they haven't been to a live show in a long time, and the live concert experience will be something they come back to. They'll be tired of watching it on Youtube, watching it on their phone. They're going to want to be in the experience. I think there will be a real renaissance of live entertainment."

When questioned about the possibility of small venues opening first, Taylor admitted that might be hard to do for a band the size of Slipknot. "It helps when it's a room that's long, where we can get all of our crap in. We have so much crap now, we'd have to go to Guitar Center and start finding shit – like 'Clown, you take that kit and Frankenstein it. We'll just put it in there. No, you can't shit on it! [laughs].' It'd be funny, it'd be insane."

That said, Taylor says there has been discussion of playing more intimate shows as a group. "We've actually talked about doing something like that for years, and doing a throwback show. And doing a throwback show in a way where we wear the old gear as well. But that's… I mean, I don't know, few and far between," says the singer. "We'd have to make sure that we could do it in a safe way, obviously. Not just from a coronavirus standpoint, I mean that would be IN – SANITY. But, we'll see. It would be insane."

Hear more of Rock Feed's chat with Corey Taylor and Alicia Dove in the player below.